The Downside of Atheism

On Friday, the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech parliament voted against making Good Friday a public holiday. That is a huge shame because we get Easter Monday off, and a four-day weekend would have been a very nice springtime bonus. One of the main arguments against making Good Friday a public holiday was the burden on the economy – Deputy Michal Doktor (ODS) said that each public holiday means a loss of 8 to 9 billion crowns.

The story in the Prague Daily Monitor compared the number of Czech holidays to the number of holidays in some other European countries. Here is the count:

Norway – 19
Spain – 18
Czech, Denmark, Italy, Portugal, Slovakia – 13
France – 12
Netherlands – 11
UK, Poland – 10
Greece – 9

While it looks like we are doing fairly well for holidays here in the Czech Republic, it should be noted that we have no Monday holiday rule and so if a holiday falls on a weekend, we lose it.

1 and 8 May are both holidays – if one falls on a weekend, so does the other. 5 and 6 July are both holidays – if they are on Saturday and Sunday, that is another two lost at once. Last Christmas, we lost the 24^th and 25^th of December as they were Saturday and Sunday, which means that we also lost the 1^st of January. I am fairly certain that it is not possible for us to enjoy the benefit of all 13 public holidays in the same year.